Name: Demetria Martinez
Born: July 10, 1960 in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Identities:
Identities:
- Mestiza
- Indigenous Chicana of Jewish ancestry
- Americana
- Author
- Activist
- Creativity Coach
- Journalist; Demetria Martinez is currently employed by and writing for National Catholic Reporter
Education:
- 1982 Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Bachelor of Arts
Life & Influences:
- Martinez was born to well-educated, middle-class parents. Later, this influence in her life would translate into her writing as she would write from a middle-class perspective, an often unexplored area of Chicana literature.
- When she was young, Martinez was known as a shy, overweight teenager who, at fifteen, wrote in journals to connect with herself.
- In an interview, Martinez, “...credits her love for writing as well as her spirituality to her grandmother, a God-fearing, Bible-reading Mexican Protestant.”
- In the 1980s, Martinez took part in the Sanctuary Movement to aid Central American refugees, offering them a haven in the United States so as to escape the violence occurring in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Significant Events:
"A turning point for me as a poet and as a reporter was when I saw an exhibit at a Tucson church [Martinez lived in Arizona in the ’90s]: things that immigrants carried over and things that were found. These included bicycles; immigrants would think Phoenix is just around the corner and they’re going to just get ready and get to work. They found a baby stroller. They found babies’ boots. They found love letters, little books of prayers, sardine cans. The poet and reporter in me will forever wonder, What happened to that baby in that stroller? What happened to the mother?" - Demetria Martinez
- In 1987, Martinez was charged with smuggling two Salvadoran women into the country, potentially facing a penalty of twenty-five years in prison. In her trial, her own poem, "Nativity, for Two Salvadoran Women," was used against her in court. Martinez was later acquitted on First Amendment grounds when it was discovered that she had only accompanied the immigrants, who were a part of an approved Sanctuary Movement.
Most Notable Works:
- Mother Tongue (1997)
Awards:
- 2008 Lannan Foundation Residency, Marfa, Texas (October)
- 2006 International Latino Book Award for Best Biography (for Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana)
- 2006 Recognized by Enlace Comunitario for outstanding service on behalf of victims of domestic violence
- 1994 Western States Book Award for Fiction for Mother Tongue (after first release by Bilingual Review/Press, Arizona State University)
- 1988 Recognized by the University of New Mexico’s Women’s Resource Center for outstanding contributions to the community
- 1987 Irvine Chicano Literary Prize, UC Irvine, First Place Poetry
- 1981-1982 Wilson Scholar, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
